Former Walden Media CEO joins with animator Ed Jones; first film, "Turkeys," will feature Wilson and Harrelson
Journalists Turn Into Pols in Blog-centric Media World
The collapsing media landscape is sending more and more reporters out into the job market -- and into a field they once covered.
Slideshow
Through the years, Playboy has managed to attract some top flight talent to appear in the all-together. So in honor of the Bunny's half-century milestone, TheWrap takes a look at some of the top celebrities who have taken a turn as Playboy cover girls -- from sultry sirens such as Pamela Anderson to funny girls like Marge Simpson, with a mercifully short stop-off at the truly frightening. (Sorry LaToya!)
One more warning sign of the crumbling field that is journalism: a once-sacrosanct wall is coming down – the one between reporters and the people they cover in politics.
These days so many journalists are crossing over to join the pols -- some of them crossing back again whenever the opportunity presents itself -- that there are few signs the wall ever existed.
Think Linda Douglass, who left her post as congressional correspondent for ABC News last year to work for then presidential candidate Barack Obama and now is in line to serve as an assistant secretary of Health and Human Services.
Or Jay Carney, once Washington bureau chief at Time magazine, now press secretary to Vice President Biden.
Or Peter Gosselin, an award-winning economic writer for the L.A. Times, now chief speechwriter for Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.
Or the Tribune’s Jill Zuckman, now press secretary to Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.
Perhaps even more startling, watch “Countdown With Keith Olbermann” or “The Rachel Maddow Show” almost any day, and you’ll see working reporters like NBC News' Chief Foreign Correspondent Richard Engel taking anything but an objective journalistic stance.
What’s changed, say those on either side of the crumbling wall, is a more politicized press corps that declares its partisan stripes as part of a branding campaign.
Some D.C journalists, like Hollywood reporters tempted to write their own screenplays, are drawn to the very politics they have always covered.
But perhaps more telling, the collapsing media landscape is sending more and more reporters out into the job market. “For the first time in 50 years, politicians have more job security than journalists,” said Robert Lichter, director of the Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University. “It’s hard to fume at an act of desperation. Once upon a time journalists wanted to be eyewitnesses to history. Now journalism is becoming history.”
And many journalists insist that they are just bringing their skills of inquiry to a different part of the playing field. “This is a Democratic administration; we’re obviously on that side of the aisle, but I don’t see this as a partisan job at all,” said former Time bureau chief Carney.
Susan Molinari is a former congresswoman from New York who raised eyebrows when she left Congress to become a CBS news anchor before settling into her current role as political strategist at D.C.’s Bracewell & Giuliani.
“I’m not surprised,” she said of the recent spate of journalists entering politics. “For generations, journalists and politicians had a symbiotic relationship.”
Howard Rosenberg, the Pulitzer Prize-winning former television critic for the Los Angeles Times, sees the situation as far less benign.
A journalist who goes to work as a press secretary can understand journalists' needs, but "when you become somebody's press secretary, I no longer regard you as a journalist," he said. "You are working for a politician and in effect you are in public relations ... when you finish that job, you can't go back to being a journalist."
That doesn't seem to be disturbing those in the Washington slipstream these days.
When the revolving door twirls the other way, politicos like Molinari often argue that the insights gained on the inside make them better journalists.
Diane Sawyer served as an aide in the Nixon White House before becoming a network star, first at CBS and now at ABC.
Comments
Cy Says
Anonymous you are either being naive or purposely deceptive, because if someone won't believe the press experts in this piece, they could certainly believe President Obama —the star attraction at the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.
On May 9, 2009, some 2,500 journalists, politicians and celebrities jammed into the Washington Hilton ballroom for the press corps’ annual celebration of itself. They broke into adoring applause and appreciative laughter for the President as he acknowledged perceptions that he’s a media darling: “Most of you covered me; all of you voted for me. Apologies to the Fox table.”
Let's be honest though, reporters and journalists are people. Realistically in the course of a campaign they will be drawn to one candidate/party or another. Fine and good, they are Americans too and that is also their right. But if the media really and truly expects the public to have trust in their opinions they should voluntarily express who/what party they support and why.
There are many people of liberal views who do not like Sean Hannity of the Fox Network because he makes it plain he is a conservative. But whether we agree with him or not, we should respect the fact that he at least is not trying to deceive anyone. He is what he is. Would that other reporters were so honest and less derogatory of average people of a different opinion.
A recent example was the liberal media coverage of the grassroots nationwide "tea" parties by average Americans was just a disgrace. Instead of honestly interviewing people to see what brought them out in the middle of the week, networks like CNN and MSNBC disparaged them by accusing them of racism, stupidity, ignorance and worse. They actually had the temerity, not to mention the extremely poor taste, to refer to a grassroots effort by thousands of distraught Americans who were actually protesting the out of control spending in D.C. under this administration by describing them using sexual innuendo. They lost a lot of credibility with many people for their ignorant behavior in "reporting" a story. They were not reporting it, they were trying to shape it into something that it simply was not.
I have always liked to hear both sides of a story of any issue, and as a former viewer of Anderson Cooper's 360*, although I recognized that his politics were most likely liberal, I respected him as a journalist. I was under the impression he endeavored to have some objectivity and had the ability to look at both sides of stories with an impartial viewpoint. NO MORE! Although I realized by the weird, nasty joking and laughter by MANY commentators on both CNN and MSNBC that there was something strange about their term "teabagging" I had to google it to find out what the heck they were talking about, and to say I was extremely dismayed and disgusted by people I formerly considered to be professional journalists, is to definitely understate my feelings about it. All I can say is SHAME ON THEM!!!
I tried to watch the Anderson Cooper special Money & Main Street on the economy tonight but I realized I now had the perception of him now as the rich guy with the condescending attitude toward middle class people and that I no longer put any stock in the "information" he or the other participants were providing. I had to turn the channel as he is no longer relevant.
David Hinz Says
It has been said that 2008 is the year that Journalism died. That is not entirely true. Journalism has been on live support for decades as reporting was supplanted by advocacy journalism.
2008 is merely the year that Journalism was declared brain dead.
A free and independent press is necessary, but rare in human history. Thank goodness for the internet -- because journalism in the Oldstream Media is totally gone.
Anonymous Says
I wonder if the media would have the guts to stand up and say,
"How about cutting back the salaries of the Senate & House, make them pay for their health insurance and discontinue their present retirement plan and begin paying into social security" Just wonder how different their decisions would be if they really felt the pain the "We the People" feel????????????
Anybody in the Media World gutsy enough to take this on????????
betheweb Says
Objectivity left the building sometime between 1968 and 1972.
Now that the media companies are sinking, the rats are skittering across whatever line they can find to land in cushy, well-paying jobs as government flacks that require even less work.
Their first order of business will be to burrow into the General Schedule and get career status. Then they can suck off the tax teat for the rest of their lives. Parasites, the lot of them.
Virtuakd Says
I know I shouldn't be shocked, but I just can't get over how much fear, anxiety and hatred the Right is consumed by right now. Judging by the comments on this story you would think that many of the readers would welcome the unconstitutional tactics of McCarthy over the desperately grasping at straws situation that we find ourselves in today! The irony to me, is that the free-wheeling user-generated content - like the very comments posted on this site - would NEVER be tolerated in an Orwellian-like resurgent McCarthy era where writing or associating with alternative viewpoints was a reason for blacklisting or worse. I feel sorry for you poor conservatives... I really do.
--- An Interested Party ---
jr Says
Gotta "reward" those who got him elected - it is one of the requirements. With most of the media in Zero's camp, they will now proceed to shut down the arguments against their leftist acts. CHANGE you can believe in. After the Dimocrats get the budget passed, there will be so much money for the liberal projects that Soros will be able to slow up his spending.
tdrag Says
This is nothing new. Obama's hero Roosevelt had at least 6,000 journalists cranking out propaganda for his Marxist New Deal programs. Now Barky has the "Fairness" Doctrine to use against any opposition that may arise. In spite of his denials, he WILL use it if things start going against him. I hope America can survive when this house of cards falls.
NoMoreMrNiceGuy Says
Operation Mockingbird in action?
JamesJ Says
Pravda on the Potomac
Exnjcop Says
After decades of declaring their neutrality the former media people now openly admit their bias. I have maintained for many years that if media people were indeed the Fourth Estate charged with the responsibility of fully and fairly reporting Governmental activities then they should voluntarily make known their biases and conflicts. Yearly, each publication should require each reporter to disclose sources of income, organizational memberships, donations and the receipt of any gifts. The reporters should be held to the same standards as the politicians they cover.
I think I have a right to know whether a reporter is a member of, or donated to, the ACLU or the John Birch Society.
theblueguy Says
beware of the government media complex
steve o Says
Liberal Hack socialist journalists.....shocker. But they weren't in the tank for NoBama during the election.
Adrian Vance Says
Gone is the Fourth Estate that watched over government for the people and they wonder why no one wants newspapers any more. Since plastic bags were found to do a much better job of containing garbage and who has birds anymore the newspaper lost much of it's value.
Worse than that; we now have broadcast journalists who get thrills up their legs when a black man speaks so eager are they to prove they are "really nice people." Who can any longer pretend that NBC, in it's several iterations, is an objective news source? That alienates half the audience and no media entity can afford to throw away 50% of the potential audience.
The future for major media is as clear as the future of America. It is time to flush the toilet and they appear all to be turds.
Nothing Says
It has nothing to do with right wing or left wing!!! All of these people are about complete power, ,global socialism!!! God save us from a queen or king of the world!!
Jade Says
Im starting to think that the aztecs are right about the end of the calender at the end of 2012!!!
The Old Sailor Says
Betrayed. There is no other word for the adolescent minds that have stolen the soul of America than ‘betrayed.’ Barack Hussein Obama, and those, whose lives have been indoctrinated by Communist utopian platitudes have joined the corrupt political opportunist to undermine the USA. A State of Civil War exists; brought about by the nullification of the ‘triumvirate’ of “Separation of Powers,” and now holding tyrannical power over the people, the US Treasury and tax injustice. Yes folks, a state of Civil War is at hand. The Fifth Column, composed of “The Mutual Blackmail Society,” formally the US Democratic Party is clearly seen and will be seen with greater clarity in the next few weeks. The late, Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin was right after all.
The Old Sailor, Townhall.com
Bob Woodward Says
Nice try,
Even I can recognize when the referees leave the game to go play for the home team.
Gee, I wonder if they were calling a fair game before they departed?
Bob
Anonymous Says
Really? Since when is Howard Rosenberg a right-wing operative?
Anonymous Says
What a poorly reported piece. All of the so-called press experts quoted in this story are from the ideological right (and therefore have an axe to grind in that most of the new apostate reporters have gone to work for Dems). Perhaps Ms Neumann ought to also consider defecting somewhere else. Who ON EARTH takes Brent Bozell seriously as press expert? He's an extreme right wing one man "think tank." Whew.